Absolutely Normal Chaos Read online

  Mom hardly even noticed all the work I had done, she was so busy drooling all over Dennis. Dennis was being pathetic. He wasn’t even near dead—just had this huge bandage on his knee. He spent the entire day lying on the couch in the living room, moaning. He got ice cream and ginger ale, and Mom kept going in and feeling his forehead (his forehead! It was his knee that got hurt!).

  Mom only said two things about Carl Ray’s room. First she said, “Thank you, girls, for setting that up.”

  Girls! And Maggie just smiled and said, “It was nothing.” Ha.

  And the only other thing Mom said was, “I can’t imagine Carl Ray in the nursery!”

  It does seem a little funny. The room has yellow walls (that’s not so bad) and frilly white curtains with yellow bunnies on them (now that’s bad), and a little border around the top of the walls that also has yellow bunnies on it.

  I keep wondering what it will be like with Carl Ray here. Whenever I ask Maggie to tell me more about him, though, she acts like it’s no big deal. But I did notice that she put a bottle of her perfume in the bathroom, which is strange because usually she hides it in her drawer so I won’t touch it.

  Everybody seems so excited about Carl Ray coming. Even Mom, which surprises me, because I thought she didn’t want him to come. I keep wondering how we’re all going to manage getting in and out of the bathroom. That will make eight of us who have to share it. With seven of us now, there’s already a problem. There is another one downstairs, but it only has a toilet and a sink.

  Mom told me and Maggie that we have to wear our bathrobes now. I wonder if Carl Ray will wear a bathrobe.

  Saturday, June 16

  Well. Carl Ray has arrived.

  It’s almost midnight and Maggie is out with her boyfriend, Kenny, and boy, is Dad mad. She hasn’t even seen Carl Ray. That’s not why Dad is mad: He’s mad because Maggie and Kenny left at noon and they were going to the beach and they didn’t say what time they’d be back. She’s in real trouble, I think. Everyone else went to bed, but Dad is downstairs waiting.

  Well, about Carl Ray. What a disappointment he is. I was expecting something quite, quite different. We waited around all morning looking out the windows. Around noon Dad came back from Alesci’s. He does the grocery shopping on Saturdays, and afterward he stops at Alesci’s, which is an Italian deli, and he buys a bunch of ham and two loaves of hotttttt, freshhhhhh bread, and as soon as he gets home and we put away the groceries, we always dive into the hot bread and ham and make these enormous sandwiches. It’s the best part of Saturdays, usually.

  Just as we finished putting the groceries away and seconds before we were going to start cutting up that great bread, Dougie comes into the kitchen yelling, “Carl Ray! Carl Ray! There’s a guy at the door who says he’s Carl Ray!” What timing.

  Carl Ray is tall and skinny, about as skinny as a person can be and still be alive. He has the blondest hair, almost white, and it sticks out in places like at the top of his head and by his ears where it is cut kind of short. He is real pale and has a million freckles all over his face and his arms, which were the only parts of him sticking out, but I bet he has those freckles everywhere. He has tiny little eyes and a tiny nose; in fact, his whole head looks like a miniature of a real person’s head. So there is this tiny little head perched on top of this tall, thinnnnnn body, and off this body hang two longgggg, thin, freckled arms, and two longgggg, thin legs, and two long, thin hands and two longgggg, thin feet. What a guy.

  Carl Ray has hardly talked at all yet, and Mom thinks it is because he is nervous. He keeps looking down at your feet and never looks into your face.

  After we got him out of the living room and into the kitchen, Mom told us kids to wait and not hog the ham and bread until Carl Ray had a chance to get his. I can see it all now: Carl Ray is going to take over. He’s the only one with his own room and he’s the only one who ever got to grab six slices of ham and four slices of bread before anyone else could even touch it.

  After lunch, Mom showed Carl Ray to his room and drooled all over, apologizing for the bunnies and stuff. He didn’t say one word, just looked around and put his suitcase down. Mom said he might like to rest awhile (probably because he ate such a HUGE lunch), and he nodded and closed his door. Then Mom told us all to be quiet until he got up. Brother.

  So all afternoon everybody tiptoed around, but he didn’t even come out of his room until he smelled dinner cooking. Just as we put everything on the table, he appeared. He kind of sneaks up on you.

  Mom told Carl Ray to sit at the end of the table, opposite Dad. That’s a “special” seat that we all take turns sitting in. I don’t know why it is special; it just is.

  For being a skinny person, he sure eats a lot. He had four pieces of chicken, three helpings of mashed potatoes, about a ton of green beans, three glasses of milk, and two helpings of cake. Mom kept looking at the chicken, as if she could make more pieces appear by staring hard enough. And when Dennis went to take his second piece, she gave him a dirty look, and said, “Wait a bit; we have com-pa-ny.”

  After dinner, we all sat around watching TV. Carl Ray sat in my dad’s favorite chair, the one none of us is ever allowed to sit in when Dad is in the room. During the whole night, Carl Ray never said one single word, even though sometimes Mom or Dad would say something to him. He just nods or shakes his head; sometimes he grunts a little.

  When everybody started going to bed, Mom said, “Now let Carl Ray get in the bathroom first,” so we all waited around while he went into his room and shut his door. We waited and waited and waited. Finally, Dougie went over and peeked under the door and whispered that the light was out! Doesn’t Carl Ray even wash up or brush his teeth before he goes to bed?

  It’s one o’clock and Maggie isn’t home. I bet Dad is still waiting in the living room. I sure wouldn’t want to be her tonight.

  Sunday, June 17

  Carl Ray is going to drive me cra-zeeee. And so is Maggie. Lord.

  First, Maggie. She got home at two A.M. I know, because she came into the room crying and throwing her shoes around and she turned the light on, and needless to say, I wasn’t sleeping through that. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “Ohhh! Everything.”

  I said, “Like what?”

  “Everything. Kenny. Dad. Ohhhh. I’m so mad.”

  She was mad? “Why are you mad?”

  She glared at me. “Because I told Kenny we had to call and he kept saying, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and because Dad never lets me have any fun, and because now he says I’m grounded for at least two weeks and next Saturday is only the biggest party I’ll ever be invited to, and because Dad told Kenny not to show his face around here until he could be a gentleman, and because Kenny probably will never speak to me again.”

  Then she threw herself down on her bed and started pounding her pillow and sobbing. I hate it when she does that. It looks like a movie. I told her Carl Ray had arrived.

  “So what?” she said.

  “Don’t you want to hear about him?”

  “No!” She was pounding the pillow again. This morning she stayed in bed until noon, and then she was in the bathroom for about two hours, and when she came downstairs finally, her eyes were all puffy and she wasn’t talking to anybody.

  Whenever Dad came into the room, she would go storming out. Finally, Dad told her if she didn’t quit her “theatrics,” he was going to ground her for a month, for starters. That made her shape up a little. She’s still pretty mopey, and every time the phone rings she jumps for it, but at least she’s talking to people a little bit.

  For instance, she’s the only one who seems to be able to talk to Carl Ray and get some words out of him. I heard her asking him some questions and he actually answered her with words. It went something like this:

  “So I hear you’re going to look for a job? Is that right, Carl Ray?”

  “Yup.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Where are you going to look?
”

  Long pause by Carl Ray. Then, “Don’t rightly know.”

  “What sort of work are you interested in?”

  Long pause by Carl Ray. “Don’t rightly know.”

  “What are you good at?” That’s Maggie all right. She just keeps picking away and picking away like a vulture or something.

  I was glad that I didn’t have to try to make conversation with him. It’s painful. Besides, I was already mad at him for spoiling my day. I was supposed to go over to Beth Ann’s at eleven and we were going to go and hang around the pool, but Mom said I had to wait until Carl Ray got up so I could make up his bed and stuff. I said, “What? Why do I have to make up his bed?”

  “Because you’re responsible for the upstairs and you know you can’t leave until it’s clean.”

  “But why can’t he make up his own bed, like everyone else?”

  We have this hugely complicated chore system at our house. Every year we have a big meeting where we’re supposed to swap jobs. It begins all nice and civilized, but ends in a shouting match: “Dennis always gets the easy jobs!”—“I do not!”—“I’ll trade you vacuuming for dusting!”—“No way!”—“That’s not fair!” You get the picture?

  We’re all supposed to make our own beds, but my main chore is to vacuum and dust the upstairs. I had to clean the bathrooms last year (eck!), but Dennis has that wonderful job now.

  Back to Carl Ray. I said, again, “Why can’t Carl Ray at least make up his own bed, like everyone else?”

  “Because Carl Ray is our guest, Mary Lou.”

  That drove me crazy. Whenever I’m going to spend the night at someone’s house, my mom tells me that I must be very considerate and always make my bed up neatly as soon as I get up. When I reminded her of this, she said, “Well, his mother might not have told him that. If he’s still here in two weeks, he’ll make his own bed.”

  “But if I don’t go now, Beth Ann might not wait—”

  “Now don’t you argue with me. If you’re going to argue, then you can stay home all day.”

  Boy, are people touchy lately. So I waited and waited. I even tried making noise upstairs, like turning on my radio.

  Mom said, “Turn that off! You might wake Carl Ray.” (Exactly.)

  I waited a little longer and decided to go ahead and do the vacuuming in the other bedrooms and the hallway, so all I would have left to do would be Carl Ray’s room.

  Mom came flying up the stairs after me and flipped off the switch and said, “I told you to keep quiet up here!”

  “But—”

  “Mary Lou Finney!” When Mom says “Mary Lou Finney,” she means business.

  I kept calling Beth Ann, about every fifteen minutes, telling her Carl Ray still was not up and I couldn’t leave until I did maid service for him. Finally, at twelve thirty, Beth Ann said, “It doesn’t sound like you’re ever going to get out of there. I’m going for a ride with my parents.”

  Boy, was I mad. When ole Carl Ray finally did stroll out of his room about one o’clock, I nearly pushed him over when I passed him. Sure enough, he didn’t make his bed, so I did, and I picked up all his stupid gum wrappers that he left all over the floor and I vacuumed his stupid room. I was done by one fifteen, but then I had nowhere to go.

  All Carl Ray did the whole entire day was sit in front of the television set chewing gum and watching whatever happened to come on. I don’t think he even got up to change the channel. A real live wire, this Carl Ray.

  What a boring day, with everyone just wandering in and out of rooms: Maggie avoiding Dad, Dad avoiding Maggie, me avoiding Carl Ray, all of us avoiding Mom, who was doing the laundry and if you get in her way, she makes you fold clothes or iron.

  I was so bored, I even went with Dennis and Doug over to the field behind Mrs. Furtz’s house.

  There’s a big old tree there that sits in a little dip in the ground and its branches hang real low, so if you crawl into the dip and under the branches, it’s like a fort inside. Anyway, we went in and cleaned out some leaves and junk, and we moved the rocks that cover a hole we dug last year. It was funny to see what we put inside: a box of matches, a newspaper, a red ball, two packs of chewing gum, a treasure map we had drawn (the treasure consists of fifty cents, which we buried in another hole about a hundred yards away), and a deck of cards. Real exciting.

  We hung around there awhile, climbing the tree (I have to admit that even though I am thirteen years old, I still love to climb trees), pretending we were looking out for enemies, and playing cards. We should have brought some food. We were going to chew the gum, but it was all gross from being in the ground for a whole year.

  It’s funny, but thinking about the fort and the field now reminds me of something that happened there about four years ago. It’s a stupid thing, but I’ll write it down anyway. I can always rip it out later if it’s too embarrassing.

  I guess I was nine years old then, and there was this boy named Johnny White who lived down the street from us. He was Dennis’s friend really, and he was a year younger than I was. Anyway, one day Dennis, Johnny, and I were over in the forest running around the trees and singing some stupid song. Then Dennis said he was going home to get us some sandwiches so we could have a picnic. Johnny and I walked all around the field with the tall grass where there were bunches of buttercups too, and I picked one and rubbed it under Johnny’s chin, which made him laugh because he had never seen anyone do that before. And all of a sudden, I don’t know what came over me, but I just reached over and kissed Johnny White on the lips! I don’t think I had ever kissed anyone but my parents on the lips before. And I was real surprised because his lips were so soft, but they didn’t taste like anything at all. So I kissed him again, mainly just to see if I could taste anything.

  We didn’t even hear Dennis coming. The first I knew he was there was when he said, “Hey, what’re you doing?”

  But then we all just ate our sandwiches and went back to messing around in the forest, climbing trees, and stuff, and I didn’t think any more about kissing Johnny until the next day.

  What a mess. Mrs. White called my mother. My mom said Mrs. White was almost hysterical. Mrs. White said that Johnny told her all about our “necking” in the woods, and that it was all my idea, and that I was too old for her son, and her son was too innocent for some “wild girl” (that’s what she called me, Mom said), and she didn’t ever want her son at our house again, and I wasn’t ever to go near him, and if Dennis wanted to play with Johnny he would just have to go to their house, but he wasn’t ever to bring me!

  Then Mom asked me to tell her what happened, and I did. She said that someday I would understand why Mrs. White got so upset and that I should wait a few years before I practiced kissing any boys again, because kissing is something you have to be careful about. I asked her why, but she just said she would have to think of a good explanation and I should ask her again in a few years. In a few years!

  Well, I think that now I know what she meant, but it’s sad really, because Johnny and I didn’t mean anything by it, and I never got to play with him again. The next time I saw him was about a week later at the drugstore, but he didn’t even look at me. He doesn’t live on our street anymore and I’ll probably never see him again. I haven’t kissed (or been kissed by) a boy since, and I do wonder if all lips have no taste, like Johnny’s.

  Once, when Beth Ann was telling me about Jerry Manelli kissing her at a school dance, I asked her what it tasted like.

  “What it tasted like?” She looked at me like I was some kind of weirdo.

  “Yes, what did it taste like?”

  “The kiss?”

  “Yes, of course the kiss!”

  “Well, nothing.”

  “You mean it tasted like nothing at all? It must have tasted like something.” She didn’t know about Johnny White and I didn’t want to tell her. For some reason, I made it sound like I knew kisses had to taste like a specific thing.

  She started fidgeting around. “Well, now t
hat you mention it…”

  “So it did taste like something?”

  “Well, yes, it did….”

  “Like what? What did it taste like?”

  She had her eyes closed as if she was trying to remember, and she was moving her lip around. “Well, I guess it tasted like…chicken.”

  Now that surprised me. “Chicken? Are you sure?”

  “Well, gosh, Mary Lou, I wasn’t paying that much attention. I think it was like chicken, yes.”

  It’s not the sort of taste you would expect, is it?

  Monday, June 18

  Maggie spent the entire day gabbing away on the phone. She called Kenny, and then Kenny called her back, and she called her friend Angie and then Angie called her. Back and forth all day. She is cooking up a plan to get Dad to let her go to that party on Saturday. If anyone can do it, Maggie can. It’s disgusting. About all she has to do is roll her eyes and talk real sweet and she gets anything she wants.

  Ole Carl Ray finally decided he’d get out of his bed around noon. You know, I’ve never once seen Carl Ray go into the bathroom. Now, I’m sure he must have been in there (well, really), but I know for sure he has not taken a shower yet. You can just tell when he walks by. Lord.

  He appeared in the kitchen while I was making lunch and stood there watching me. Finally I said, “Are you going to want lunch?” He makes me so mad, the way he stands around waiting for people to feed him and stuff, and lying around not doing a darn thing.

  He said, “Okay.”

  Brother.

  While we were eating lunch, I said, “Aren’t you going to go out and look for a job?”

  He put his sandwich down on his plate and said, to his sandwich it seemed, “Sure.”